All the king's horses
by sp00ksfan
Summary: Ruth disappears but the past catches up with her eventually...Contains Series 5 Ep 5 spoilers as it carries on from there.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: All the spooks characters etc… are the property of Kudos and the BBC.

This is my first fanfic so be gentle and constructive please! All reviews welcome! I have the whole story planned out – it will be around 10-12 chapters, so it IS going somewhere…just be patient! I wanted to write a spooks story that featured Harry and Ruth rather than a romantic story centred on them if that makes sense – if the writers won't do it for us….

Join the 'Bring Back Ruth' campaign! Look in the forum 'Best In Show' under the topic 'Postcards'…

Chapter 1

Ruth felt the barge juddering beneath her feet as it pulled away from the dock, into the centre of the Thames. The cold stung her face and she began to shiver despite being inside the small cabin. Looking through the window, she watched as the figure standing there motionless, looking back at her, got smaller and smaller; until his face blurred and his body merged into a black dot in the very distance. She knew that he wouldn't move until every last glimpse of her had disappeared. When at last the distance was too great, Ruth closed her eyes and tried to keep that image of Harry in her mind's eye – to save it forever. But the thought of him looking like that, with the light disappearing from his eyes, filled her with such sadness.

Pulling Ros's black coat tighter around her, she shifted from foot to foot as her breath frosted the window, obscuring the greying London landscape. She knew the Thames was widening as they passed the East India docks and drew closer to the barrier protecting London. The tide was flowing out and the barge picked up speed as they slipped through the fog and between the silver fins of the floodgates. Ruth had always though the barrier striking – like a piece of modern art stretched across the river, but today everything she loved about London's riverline was tainted and cold. Her mind flicked back to watching the police lead Harry out of the Oxford and Cambridge club in handcuffs; Oliver Mace following behind, holding his arm and climbing into an ambulance. _Bloody old fool_, she thought, _what was Harry trying to do?_ A wry smile played across her face at the thought of the conversation those two must have had. Even then it hadn't seemed irreparable. There still could have been another way to twist and turn, and slip sideways through the closing net. Except maybe they had both been trapped by love after all. The very drive for self-sacrifice, for her to save Harry and for Harry to protect Ruth had made them both so vulnerable. If he'd pretended that it meant no more than Zaf or Adam being framed, then Harry could have thought of a way out. A way to double back and gain the upper hand. Paradoxically it was because he cared so much, he couldn't find a way to do what he was most desperate to.

The riverman shouted an unintelligible cry to a passing barge and jolting Ruth from her thoughts. They had reached the real industrial heart of the Thames now – the unvisited and often disused stretches of mud flats, the sky punctuated by old jagged cranes. For the first time, Ruth's mind turned towards the future, as she wondered where she would go from here. Her fingers closed on the passport pack that Adam had brought down whilst she waited through that terribly cold night. Her new name left a bit to be desired – Helene Peters. She rolled the sound around her mouth, feeling that she'd never get used to it fully. Malcolm, she thought, was probably responsible for that. He always was a bit of a romantic at heart, but no-one would be launching a thousand ships after her. She knew that for sure. It was also so fitting that the last voice she'd heard saying her real name was Harry who had sighed "Ruth…." with such depth as she'd stepped off of the dock onto the moving barge.

In the other pocket was a single white business card with 16 digits written across the centre. It was a Swiss bank account where Malcolm had deposited fifty thousand US dollars, bounced through Lichtenstein and a one-day holding account in the British Cayman Islands. He assured her that it was untraceable without an Interpol level-3 warrant, as tax havens reserved special protective rights, but Ruth planned to cash it in and destroy the trail as soon as she could. Perhaps she'd bury it under a tree in the Alps – the old way of doing things seemed rather appealing suddenly. Swiss bankers had the reputation of being the most secure and secretive in the world, but Ruth knew that if the information trail was there, it could be found. How long it took was just related to how desperate someone was to find it. A trip in that direction wasn't a bad idea though: her German was rusty, but she knew that she had less of a noticeable accent than in French. Having a Bavarian school teacher had added a bit of authenticity, as the class all inherited bayerische colloquialisms that other Germans loved to ridicule. In that sense the name was useful – it could pass for being English, French or German as she needed.

There was a solid bump and the decks of the barge jolted. Ruth had to put out a steadying hand to stop herself from falling and saw they had pulled alongside a small paint-flaked fishing boat. The riverman looked her in the eyes for the first time. _Such sad grey eyes_, he thought and said brusquely "I en't askin and you en't telling." With a flick of his head, he indicated "That boat there docks at Oostende. There's an old white Renault 5 in the street running west from the port. Keys taped to the wheel arch".

Ruth noticed his vowels were long, with a cockney twang, but not like the East-end. She'd heard of the generations of Thamesmen – apprenticed at an early age and who once on a barge, rarely stepped bankside again - but this was the first time she done more than watch the lonely figures drift up and down from a distance. "Thank you" she said "I don't know who arranged…I mean which one…but thank you".


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Harry sat in his office, the red walls glowing in the contrast between the light thrown from his small desk lamp and the shadows. He looked around the empty Grid; everyone had gone home or perhaps to the George for a drink. They still invited him, but he'd never accepted. Harry had considered it once or twice in the past, when he'd ascertained that Ruth was going too and just wanted to stand close to her, listen to her talk and laugh about things other than work. But he'd never trusted himself not to betray those feelings that he had to keep hidden. All that was in the past now. She was gone. The words still wrapped around his heart and squeezed, causing physical pain. He'd never thought that an emotion could do that. Even through his divorce and the ensuing problems with Catherine, he'd never felt quite so sick at the pain of caring about someone.

His gaze returned to his office. Malcolm had done his monthly security sweep of the Grid, checking for external and internal bugs and cameras. This was the only time Harry felt safe – when he could be certain that no-one was watching as he hadn't left his office since Malcolm finished. Once a month he allowed himself the luxury of this hidden 15 minutes, very late at night, alone. Reaching into the back of his mouth, Harry unclicked the false tooth. Angela wasn't the only one to have seen the Harley Street dentist after 1992 but Harry hadn't felt the need to tell anyone about it. Extracting the microdot film of the documents Adam had copied for him before destroying them, he unlocked his bottom desk draw and pulled out the reader he'd recovered from Ruth's house.

Putting his eye to the viewer, he paused over the first sheet – the main page from the passport of Helene Peters. He lingered over the photograph, a hint of a smile was on Ruth's lips as she posed for what must have been the hundredth shot on one of the Grid's photo days. The shots were taken en-mass, different changes of clothes, hair and makeup and then stored for future use with legends so that they avoided the same look twice for ops. Malcolm had picked one of Ruth's loveliest pictures. She looked so alive and full of vitality. He gripped the microdot reader, wishing the photograph was printed so that he could trace the outline of her face with his fingertips. Her hair was down, tucked behind her ears and her eyes sparkled. He noticed she was wearing her favourite necklace – _the one with those dangly bits_, Harry thought, and he liked the fact that it was Ruth in this photograph rather than a character she was pretending to be.

He rolled the film on to the second page, which contained a summary of the bank details, and the follow-up that showed the account being completely emptied four days after Ruth had left. She always was a good spook, covering her trail. There had to be a trail though; Harry couldn't stand the thought of not knowing where she was. This way it was still his choice. For her safety he wouldn't contact her. He knew that he couldn't put her life at risk again, not for the selfish reason that he simply needed her.

He didn't look at the last page of the film, knowing its contents by heart. Ruth had boarded the barge, changed to a Belgium mussel boat near Canvey Island then landed at Oostende. A small rusty and unobtrusive car had been left there for her. Between Belgium and Switzerland, Harry had no idea what had happened and it was in Zurich that the trail ran cold. Sighing heavily, he drew back from the microdot reader and held his head in his hands for a long while. He then tidied up, replacing the microdot in its hiding place and the reader that Ruth had stolen in his drawer before locking it once again. Harry rubbed his eyes and drew the back of his hand over his mouth, staring at Ruth's desk through the glass. He was wearing the expensive cologne he'd bought the day he took Ruth to dinner; in fact, it was the only brand he used now. It reminded him of how perfect that evening had been two years ago. The night he finally let go and admitted to himself that he was completely in love with Ruth Evershed.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

On Ruth's first night in Munich, it had snowed three feet. The bitterness of the overnight change had completely surprised her as had the ease with which the rest of the city adapted. Winter boots and coats came out, the streets were cleared before seven am and car owners changed to their winter tires that very morning. Driving over the Alpine passes from Zurich had prepared her for the possibility of snow later on in the winter, but she had still needed to go straight to the large department store on Marienplatz and buy a complete set of the warmest clothes she could find. Luckily money hadn't been much of a problem and for a country at the forefront of investment banking, Germany ran extremely well on cash. Ruth had been amazed at how little people seemed to use credit cards. Even ordering over the internet involved paying the courier in cash when they arrived to deliver your goods.

It was strange to see it from the other side – she had spent so many years hunting for people trying to disappear, following the banking trails across Europe only to see them run cold in this country. Now it was proving extremely useful as she wanted to avoid using her new identity as much as possible. A simple bank account with the facility to transfer electronic funds to her landlord was enough – the distracted professor who was being seconded to Australia for three years didn't need the name that she had opened the account in, just the ten digit BACS code. He had even included utilities in the rent, so all Ruth had to do was pretend to be Professor Isenbach to upgrade to a high-density ISDN internet connection. Within the first 2 weeks, Helene Peters, a nervous English post-graduate had registered with the local town hall to study for three years in Munich, unfortunately still in temporary student accommodation. A basic account at the Hyper-Verein bank was opened in the name of Katherine Shrett and Ruth felt confident that there was very little, if any, trail that led to her.

Ruth was surprised at how few possessions she needed. In comparison to her London home, the apartment was small and empty. Back there she'd kept drawers stuffed full of things that she could barely remember, never quite sure of how they'd accumulated. Now she could list the things she owned in a matter of seconds – a smart but unobtrusive pilot suitcase, the minimum of clothes and shoes, her documents, a small fortune in a mix of American dollars and Euros and a small but sleek black laptop. The documents consisted of her identity papers, a tiny silver key with the number of a Swiss safety deposit box engraved upon it and a six by four inch photograph of her and her father taken nearly thirty years ago. She kept them all wrapped in a black moleskin casing with an elastic, so that they resembled a notebook or a casual diary, and tucked this in a scuffed leather satchel bag that she carried with her wherever she went.

The laptop was of the highest specification that Ruth could find in a Taiwanese-run electronics shop just north-west of the city ring road. Wireless and generous on battery life, Ruth set about spending days in the Munich Technical University library network-hopping to find the fastest connection point to hack into. Once she'd found a perfect spot, ironically a set of desks in the little used corner of medieval history, she joined a couple of peer-to-peer communities and set about illegally but anonymously downloading some of the tools that she was going to need. If she was on her own from now on, she had to have some kind of contingency plan. Leaving London so quickly had only been possible with the support of Adam, Zaf and Malcolm. Running again would be much harder, if or when she had to. It was vital to concentrate on the life she had to make for herself in the future, but Ruth couldn't help her heart wrenching at the thought of her friends back on the Grid.

Each day she travelled home via the main Ostbahnhof where she had placed a portable hard drive in a public locker behind one of the more neglected train platforms. It took thirteen minutes to put the laptop in the locker and plug in the hard drive to automatically backup her day's worth of data. Whilst waiting, she'd lock the door and walk back to the concourse of the station to order a strong café latte.

By the beginning of December, Ruth had completed her preparation and did not need to visit the university so often. She could now redirect her home connection, bouncing off of a couple of corners of the world before opening a net-based archive that she had secretly compiled during her last two years on the Grid. The data was encoded – there was no way that she could have left it on the open internet otherwise. In fact, and this still made her smile, it was rather ingenious in its simplicity. She'd created a website on a free hosting site and filled it with Latin text. This was encoded though an alpha-numeric shift, the key being the first paragraph of her PhD thesis. As it remained unpublished and she knew the passage in question by heart, it was practically impossible to break. It would take time to translate, but time was something that Ruth had a lot of lately and the information hidden was vital. She'd archived every back door, password and computer code breaker that she'd used or come across at MI-5, enabling her to access both documents and programs from a number of free hosted download sites from anywhere in the world.

The only personal thing that she had allowed herself in this archive was a small video file that anyone else would consider completely inconsequential – a forty-five second clip of a man seated at a hotel bar, the camera viewing from above and the man unaware of being watched, is drinking scotch. No more. Nothing but a looping forty-five seconds of Harry downing glass upon glass in a rumpled white shirt and black suit.

However rewarding it had been to accomplish the first task she'd set for herself – to consolidate her position and prepare for any eventuality. It hadn't been long before the loneliness of her situation crept back in. It was subtle at first. She would hear groups of friends laughing as they met outside the train station, or glimpse at the warm cosiness of beer halls and coffee houses as she walked past on her way home. Christmas was getting nearer and when each little market place in the middle of the paved roundabouts and squares in the city became covered with wooden huts selling mulled wine and clockwork toys, Ruth had known that she couldn't spend the rest of her life preparing to be on the run again.

Looking back now to that cold December in her first few months after arriving in Germany, she could vividly remember standing in front of Schiller's bookstore, with a mug of hot wine warming the chill. Her eyes had flashed from the shop front to the newspaper advert she held in her hand. A shop assistant was required, preferably one with experience in antiquarian books or historical texts; English an advantage, restoration skills needed. They had hired her on the spot and Ruth found that she could lose herself in the delicate work of repairing bindings, or gently cleaning pages that had become stained and wrinkled over centuries. It was a highly specialised shop and their business was mostly international – couriering purchased volumes world-wide to historical scholars. Even after working there for two years now, Ruth still felt a small thrill at handling some of the truly rare volumes that they traded. It was a quiet life and she was beginning to get used to it.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Sunday AM

Adam stomped around the briefing room, scowling as he tried to put the pieces of the puzzle together. "_Ok_." He said "_We've got a new set of players coming to the table. They're a small but dedicated group of terrorists that have only just started to blip on the radar and at the moment we're pretty clueless on the who and why_".

He looked at Ros who continued after Adam nodded slightly. "_Intelligence passed onto us by a source in the US indicates that the group is organised by a German, Siegfried Herman. He comes from an academic background – writes articles leaning towards historical extremism, but nothing on the wrong side of the law so far. Words not actions but he has been published across a range of journals. The mainstream newspapers won't touch him though, not in today's sensitive German political climate. Once bitten, twice shy and no-one in the media wants to be labelled as extremist. He's gone quiet recently but our source has been hearing rumours of something in the pipeline planned on British soil. These rumours happen to coincide with the arrival of Angela Merkel and the German delegation next week to informally discuss the upcoming EU summit with the Prime Minister. We have their scheduled tour and events diary but no real indication of where an attack might take place or what form._"

Harry stood up and thumped his palms on the table. His shirt was crumpled and it had been a long day. The frustration showed in his eyes. "_So WHAT do we have_" he said loudly and impatiently. "_We need to find out who Herman is working with and where they are most likely to get access to Merkel. If Merkel is indeed the target?"_

Adam glanced round the room and then looked Harry in the eye. "_We are working on tracing the information so far to find out where they are operating from. We have some email addresses and a couple of recorded telephone conversations. Indications are that they are in Bavaria, Southern Germany but Jo is working on gathering a background file on Herman and his brother-in-law Bernt Richter. Zaf is walking through the delegation's schedule to see where they might be vulnerable and Malcolm is attempting to trace the IP addresses on the electronic communications._ "

"_Fine_" snapped Harry as he checked his watch and turned towards the door. "_Just make sure Six don't get wind of it. And steer clear of the German authorities. This might lead across their borders but we're not involving them unless we have to_".

The team visible breathed out as Harry left the room. "_He doesn't get any better tempered_" Zaf remarked and Adam half smiled wryly. "_It comes with the job_" he said "_See where you are in 15 years time with the weight of the world on your shoulders_". "_No chance._" Zaf replied, getting up to make his way back to his desk "_I'd have gone with her_".

"_Er. Adam. I need to have a quick word"_ said Malcolm quietly."_I think I've managed to trace the area that the emails are sent from_". They waited until the room was empty and sat back down, heads close together.

"_The account is a free anonymous web service. No surprise there but the IP address used originates in a large internet cafe in a district of Munich. This in itself was hard to track as it was masked by an Asian mail forwarding account. The emails were sent over a three day period and then stopped. Presumably they moved on to a different means of communication or had nothing else to say. _"

"_So where can this lead us?"_ asked Adam. "_Well"_ said Malcolm softly. _"Whoever used the connection paid in cash – I checked the records of the internet cafe. The interesting thing is though that when I checked traffic either side of the emails, directly after, another email account was used. It could be completely unrelated but it would have to be coincidence that the same person came onto the same terminal over the three days._"

"_The other email account relates to a small business in Schwabing, a district of Munich known for its booksellers due to the large university nearby. Here's the address – Koenig Bücher is the name and the emails were signed by a Bernt."_

Adam drummed his fingers on the table and looked Malcolm with pale blue eyes. "_And why the secrecy?_" he asked "_What is there that couldn't be said in front of the others?"_

"_Ruth"_ said Malcolm bluntly. "_She's working for an antiquarian book outfit in the same road. Quite a remarkable stroke of luck. It appears we have a sleeper already in place_".

Adam was speechless. He shook his head as if he didn't believe what he was hearing. "_You knew where she was? All this time?_" he whispered. _"Does Harry?"_

"_Oh God no_." Said Malcolm. "I _haven't told anybody. I just..." _he paused_ "I felt...I ought to keep an eye on her. Just in case_."

He swallowed nervously. "_I thought it was for the best. To protect Ruth. She's not involved in this in any way. I just thought I'd better warn you so there weren't any surprises."_

Adam thought for a moment. "_I have to go out there_." He said."_And we need to think of a way we can use Ruth without compromising her cover or making her bolt"._


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Of course Malcolm knew where she was – Ruth had accessed the MI-5 system once a month, cleverly using the cover of the monthly security sweep, thinking that no-one would notice a small electronic blip as they would be so busy with the sweep of the offices. In fact, it had worked very well. Malcolm hadn't noticed until a year or so after Ruth had left. Even then it had been a complete accident. He happened to be watching the port traffic log files to try and pin down an error when he saw something unusual. There was only a trace in the log of her activity for a few seconds at most, before it was edited out. However, once he knew when to watch and what to watch for, it was easy to see the backdoor that Ruth was using to scan through the department files.

He knew it was her – who else would search for any reference to Ruth Evershed and then Harry Pearce but not read any of the ops records. Who else would look through the team photographs, flicking through the image files one by one, always finishing with Harry's? She was good at covering her tracks, and he let her continue as it allowed him to work on tracing her and she wasn't accessing anything too important. At least, that's how Malcolm justified it to himself. He knew the boys in IT or even Adam would have a different view on that, but Malcolm still trusted Ruth. Her loyalty was unquestionable, whether she was on the Grid or in hiding.

It wasn't easy to find time and privacy to formulate a plan with Adam. The Grid was bustling with action but they both knew it was imperative to avoid the possibility of the others finding any reference to Ruth. Especially Harry. Malcolm though that the old boy would hit the roof – either charging off to do something himself or else be enraged that they would put Ruth in any further danger.

Adam planned to break in to the bookshop late in the evening and plant a listening device amongst the shelves. They had some new 97-Bs in that would do the job quite nicely as although they were bulky compared to the usual bugs, their mainly reverberating ceramic construction cut down the components to the bare minimum. This meant that they could broadcast within a certain range but were less likely to be picked up by any scanning devices. A bookshop should offer plenty of places to hide the small matchbox size transmitters and Ruth would be within a hundred yards. Using them would also make Adam's airport check a little easier to get through.

Ruth was to receive an early 19th century copy of the Dryden translation of The Aeneid – Adam had bought it from a bookseller near Russell Square that afternoon for a rather large sum of money and was assured that it was quite valuable despite the poor condition. It seemed almost a travesty, Malcolm thought, and he was sure that Ruth would be horrified, but needs must. The last 10 pages were removed and the flat data recorder transmitter for the system was inserted. He would encrypt a program for her to download from an anonymous server to connect her laptop via a small but highly secure Bluetooth signal from the recorder. On the first 10 pages, he carefully underlined in the faintest of pencil, a coded message based on the dactylic meter of the original Latin. He felt sure that Ruth wouldn't take long to notice and decode this. He didn't have time to be more oblique, but started with a quote from the text that he knew she would read as confirmation that it really was genuine.

"_And I could not believe that with my going I should bring so great a grief as this" _

He hoped that she would also know that she was still so missed.

The rest of the message was simple –a brief explanation of the situation and an imperative to avoid contact with the men at König Bücher but to record whatever she could and place this upon the MI-5 server in a certain folder along with a field report each evening.

The book was parcelled up in a specialist dry sealed case and addressed to Ruth in her newly assumed name. Malcolm noticed she had kept the Helene and only chosen a new surname. He smiled slightly as he knew it meant she must have liked his choice. A handwritten note was included in the parcel from a 'book dealer', requesting for the book to be restored by Helene as word of mouth had indicated her skill.

Sunday PM

Adam's trip to Munich went smoothly. A night flight in to the Franz Josef Strauss airport, a short ride on the city's underground train system and he found that the bookshop was accessible from the back via a ageing maze of metal fire escapes. There was remarkably little security, although the alarm system had taken extra time as Adam wasn't as familiar with the wiring on the German brand. The most valuable books were in additionally wired cases but Adam didn't need to do anything more than seat the 97-B in a small cavity he made on the top of a bookcase in the centre of the office space. He glued the flat piece of wood back on top of the hole and checked that it felt relatively smooth to the touch. From below, the top surface wasn't even visible and he was lucky that the shop had a controlled environmental system that meant there was very little dust to reveal any work that he had done. Ruth's shop was even less protected – he shook his head at the ease with which he entered and envied the obviously low rate of crime in Munich. He decided to leave the parcel propped up against her desk with several others that had been delivered recently. Malcolm had even thought as far as to stick franked Deutsche Post stamps on the outside so the package did not look out of place. He was sure that Ruth would see it first as it was difficult not to trip over it in order to sit down. Adam could tell it was her desk from the small trio of china cats that sat in a row on the back edge against the wall, whilst the correspondence piled to one side confirmed this as it matched the name that Malcolm had given him as her alias.

It was only when he was safely back on his flight to London at 5am that Adam realised he was disappointed that he hadn't been able to stay and see Ruth. Making contact itself was out of the question – he wouldn't have known how she would react. Seeing her though, even from a distance, would have brought him some comfort that she was ok. At the very least, when he next caught Harry at a low point, he would know he meant it when he managed to find the right moment to say what he offered every six months or so – "_I'm sure she's alright, Harry, somewhere...she's alright_". He got no more than a look in return that very definitely meant that it wasn't a topic for discussion. Adam felt that it should still be said and so, when things looked really bad, he did.

For now the important thing was finding out what Siegfried Herman had planned and how to remove the threat. Ruth was Adam's fastest way to finding out and he hoped she would recognise the importance of what he was asking her to do.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Monday AM

As she sat down with a cup of tea at her desk, Ruth stared at the parcel for a long time. They'd made a good effort – even the German stamps appeared franked and it would be enough to fool virtually everyone that looked at it. Virtually everyone. Ruth felt a small thrill as she silently ticked off the reasons in her head. Firstly, the brown paper wasn't the standard Deutsche Post wrapping paper that was universally used. Germans were very predictable, especially in their postal habits. Secondly, the numbers weren't written in the European style – an elongated "one" and a curly tailed "nine". Finally, and most obviously, although it had been three years, she'd recognise Malcolm's writing anywhere. A smile played on her lips as she ran her fingers over the package, the touch of it made her feel...connected somehow. She was touching something that had until recently, been on the Grid, that had sat in the same room as Harry. Maybe Harry had reached out his hand and run his fingers over the lettering, imagining her receiving the parcel in the same way. It was silly really but she'd learnt to find comfort in the smallest things where she could.

Ruth knew she should be cautious. She couldn't imagine a scenario where Malcolm would send something explosive or harmful to her, but no doubt the contents weren't just a Red Cross parcel from home. On the other hand, it would look stranger still at work to not open the package along with her other post so she steeled her nerves and excitement and slipped her letter opener under the flaps.

An hour later, Ruth knew exactly what she had to do. In fact, she felt alive, as if she'd been woken for the very first time in years. The system was relatively simple due to the sophisticated technology at play. The transmitter in the Koenig Bücher shop was voice and fax machine activated and would transmit a signal to the receiver on her desk. She could slip the book into her bag at the end of the day and connect to her laptop once home to run a particular software package that would isolate certain conversations with trigger words or translate electronic fax signals. It would take most of her evening, but she'd then write an intelligence report to upload to Section D as Malcolm instructed. The tiny dim red LED on the recorder was already flashing, indicating that it had already began recording since placed on her desk.

Thursday AM

Both Adam and Malcolm felt the buzz of their mobile phones at the same moment and checked to find a text from Harry that read simply "_alpha omega 34 10_"; their eyes met across the Grid and Adam frowned. AO-34 was a pretty secret safe meet place. It was on the list that Harry had the top tier of the team memorise in a meeting around 8 months ago and the briefing had been off the official radar. Emergencies only. Adam frowned again and Malcolm looked worried. It was also 9.30am already which didn't give them much time to get to East London.

Harry thrust his hands in his black double breasted winter coat and breathed out white frost as he waited for the two figures hurrying from opposite directions to approach him. They were in the middle of a deserted park near Mile End – more of a scrubland really and he cursed himself inwardly for choosing such a cold location. It was safe though and private. That was more important, especially if his hunch was right.

Malcolm reached him first and glanced upwards at Harry, not quite meeting his eyes then turned round to Adam who was trying to conceal his nervousness with a confident purposeful stride. Harry couldn't contain himself any longer. He whirled round to face them both, his eyes like steel.

"_So._" Harry said "_Either there's something you two aren't telling me about our source of intelligence in Bavaria or someone has found a very clever way to fuck with my head. So which is it?_" Adam was shocked. The old boy rarely swore and even then it tended to be...public schoolboy words like "bloody".

Harry continued, his voice sinking to almost a whisper. "_One of the highlights of my miserable working week was reading her erudite reports on whatever was the latest rabid threat to our national security. I'm assuming that rather than someone feeding us some well crafted hoax intelligence, you two actually thought that I wouldn't recognise this has Ruth Evershed written all over it?". _ He waved the plain manila folder emphatically and Malcolm winced as if Harry was about to swat him with it.

"_Harry_..." Adam began.

"_Save it Adam_" Harry snapped, his face like thunder. "_If you have dragged her into this and compromised her safety, I will personally bury you. And that isn't a figure of speech._"

"_Where is she, Malcolm?" _ Harry quietly demanded as he handed over a pen and a small piece of paper. Malcolm silently wrote:

Helene Meer

Welfenstrasse 101, Haidhausen

Schiller Bücher, Thereisenstrasse, Schwabering

Harry studied the information carefully, his eyes flickering over the piece of paper three times or so. Then he folded it, placed it in his mouth and after a couple of chews, swallowed. He then looked at Adam and quietly said "_The Grid's yours, use these reports and stop the threat to Merkel."_ Putting his hands in his pockets once more, Harry strode away. 

They both looked very relieved. If it hadn't been such a sobering situation, Adam would have been tempted to laugh. He glanced at Malcolm and remarked "_He's seriously old school isn't he?_" Malcolm managed a wry smile and turned to leave, dryly replying "_Don't they teach data disposal at new spy camp anymore? No wonder we have so many leaks._"


End file.
